Setting Title from Filename and Extra Name Info

[blgentry 51]

Emby is the 4th major platform I have used for my Movie and TV show collection.  Each system has its own naming standards, but they tend to share a lot.  One thing that I thought was a standard is something like this:

 

Mallrats (1995).mkv

Mallrats (1995) Extended.mkv

 

In some other software both of these files would be matched to the 1995 movie "Mallrats".  The second one, however, would include the extra info in the file name and the TITLE of the movie would be set to "Mallrats Extended".  This is extremely helpful for dealing with different editions and versions of movies.

 

I've spend some time reading about Emby's file naming conventions.  I spent a bit more time experimenting with a structure like:

(Folder) Mallrats (1995)/

  Mallrats (1995).mkv

  Mallrats (1995) - Extended.mkv

(/Folder)

 

I expected that the TITLE of the second file would be set to "Mallrats Extended".  I was quite surprised when I only found one entry for Mallrats.  I then discovered that they had been "Grouped" and that only one icon appears while browsing.  Versions are selected from a tiny drop down that you navigate to, click, and then select your version.

 

While this "grouping" feature is a fairly "clean" design, I'm not a big fan of it, as it hides the versions from me unless I am very careful while navigating.  I would rather see both versions with the TITLES of these versions showing which version is which.  This is more obvious for me.  I always put movies like this into a (manually created) Collection.  So I manually make a Mallrats Collection and then add both movie versions to it.

 

I'm ok with manually creating my own Collections for these kinds of movies.  But then there is quite a bit of extra work in editing each individual movie and adding the extra info that is already in the file name. 

 

Is there a good reason that Emby does not use this extra information and put it into a visible field like the TITLE?

 

Thanks for reading,

Brian.

 

[pwhodges 2012]

The grouping feature in Emby is originally designed for multiple encodings rather than for multiple edit versions.  Making it work better for versions comes up from time to time, but doesn't seem to be happening yet.  Meanwhile, using collections is an adequate alternative.

Incidentally, if the movies are already grouped, it's easy to separate them - near the bottom of the movie details page is a button "Split versions apart", which is self explanatory.  After doing that, you can make a collection as you are now.

Paul

[blgentry 51]

Thanks.  I figured that Collections were the right way for me.

 

What this post is really about, is naming the Titles of different versions, based on the file name.  Otherwise I end up with 2 or more different versions, but ALL with the SAME TITLE.  That makes it hard to figure out which one is which.  So I manually edit the title of each one.  It just seems like Emby could quite easily add the extra text in the file name to the Title.

 

Perhaps this should be some sort of optional feature, or maybe it should work exactly as the " - extra text" functionality, but actually add the text to the Title.

 

Thanks,

Brian.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

34 minutes ago, blgentry said:

Thanks.  I figured that Collections were the right way for me.

 

What this post is really about, is naming the Titles of different versions, based on the file name.  Otherwise I end up with 2 or more different versions, but ALL with the SAME TITLE.  That makes it hard to figure out which one is which.  So I manually edit the title of each one.  It just seems like Emby could quite easily add the extra text in the file name to the Title.

 

Perhaps this should be some sort of optional feature, or maybe it should work exactly as the " - extra text" functionality, but actually add the text to the Title.

 

Thanks,

Brian.

Actually Emby never changes a file name. It may assign a different name within its umbrella but the file on the disk is never changed.

Once Emby matches the files you can go into the metadata and change the title however you wish. And, unless you change the sort title in the meta data, the various videos will remain sorted as they have always been.

I have a couple of movies, like Superman II, that have two or more very different contents but they are still the same movie, I simply use the name field so I can tell them apart. I did this on my own before the "Richard Donner cut" was seen as a different movie and I find it best to never mess what is working.

[blgentry 51]

I think you are missing my point.

 

I want Emby to READ the file name and add any extra words to the title.  See my above example of "Mallrats Extended".

Emby should read the word "extended" in the file name and append that to the title.  That way, my file names, which contain information about the version of the movie, will automatically appear in the Title of the movie in Emby.

 

I am trying to eliminate the manual work of changing the title on each of these movies myself (inside of Emby).  The information is already present in the file name.

 

Thanks,

Brian.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

41 minutes ago, blgentry said:

I think you are missing my point.

 

I want Emby to READ the file name and add any extra words to the title.  See my above example of "Mallrats Extended".

Emby should read the word "extended" in the file name and append that to the title.  That way, my file names, which contain information about the version of the movie, will automatically appear in the Title of the movie in Emby.

 

I am trying to eliminate the manual work of changing the title on each of these movies myself (inside of Emby).  The information is already present in the file name.

 

Thanks,

Brian.

Then I REALLY hope Emby does not implement such. Their matching for me is better than 99.9% and any change in that area should reduce complications rather than add them and I believe this would add a LOT of complications.

Since the tools are already there for producing the effects of what you want I see zero need for automating it.

But it is possible that Emby will do what you want and make things worse for the rest of us. Emby has, at times in the past, done things I find equally foolish.

Remember that it is practically impossible to change one aspect of a complex system without having effects all over. If this were a needed change then it would be probably OK but I see this as mostly cosmetic and labor saving for a VERY small minority of Emby users and I believe it should not be implemented.

[pwhodges 2012]

There have already been issues which the devs have had to program around caused by "reserved words" appearing as part of the canonical title of an item - this suggestion would greatly increase the scope for such problems to arise.

Paul

[blgentry 51]

8 hours ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

Since the tools are already there for producing the effects of what you want I see zero need for automating it.

 

Are you suggesting that I simply manually edit the title for every one of these that I have in my library?  

You are aware that Emby already supports what I'm asking for, but only for Version names aren't you?  Meaning that if you name a file like:

 

Mallrats (1995) - Extended.mkv

 

Then Emby will use the word "Extended" to denote a version name.  I'm asking that this functionality be extended (with an option switch) that allows this Version name to be appended to the title automatically.  This seems non-invasive to me if the option is OFF by default.

 

I'm quite experienced in digital media management.  I'm certainly not trying to lessen anyone else's experience with Emby.  I'd like to enhance my own and not affect others.

 

Thanks for reading.

Brian.

[blgentry 51]

Does anyone from the Emby team have thoughts on this?

 

Thanks,

Brian.

[Luke 42081]

Wouldn’t options to display file names take care of this?

[blgentry 51]

47 minutes ago, Luke said:

Wouldn’t options to display file names take care of this?

I'm not sure I understand what you are proposing.

 

I'm asking for the ability to import my different versions of movies and to preserve the versioning information that I have in the file name.  Currently this is only supported via the tiny pulldown menu when versions of combined into a single entry.    I would rather capture this information (the version name) in a field in the database.  Preferably the Title field so I can see it displayed with the item.  I hope my idea and motivation are clear.  If not, just let me know.

 

Thanks for responding.

Brian.

[Luke 42081]

Ok I see what you mean. What if there was auto tagging based on certain things in the file name?

[blgentry 51]

5 minutes ago, Luke said:

Ok I see what you mean. What if there was auto tagging based on certain things in the file name?

That sounds fantastic to me.  You already have a standard of sorts for the version.  Namely:

Movie Name (Year) - Version Name.ext

 

I ultimately want Version Name to appear in the title as one of:

Movie Name Version Name

Movie Name (Version Name)

 

The most flexible way to do it, would be to have a template that could be changed by the end user.  I'm not trying to make this hard.  I have experience with another media center program that has a full expression language, which makes me think of more generalized solutions.

 

But back to basics:  If we can capture the Version Name somehow and make it easy for that to appear in the title, I think that would be great.

 

Thanks,

Brian.